Premiership will stage season's 1 minute silences "all in one go"

The opening matches of next season's Premiership will all start with seventeen minute silences or seventeen minutes of respectful applause, in a move to minimise disruption later in the season.

"We've got to a point now where every other game seems to start with a minute tribute," said Premiership spokesman Dave Linton. "This causes undue stress for players as well as knock on traffic delays at full time. So we've done some sums and reckon seventeen minutes of accumulated pre-match respect should cover it."

Live commentators hate the silences because they never know whether to commentate on them or stay silent, and ITV expressed a wish to put on appropriate commercials during the silences for life insurance products.

Said Linton: "This way, come August we can mourn all those likely to be tragically lost during the season - with some of the soon-to-depart actually being present for the tributes, or witnessing them on a special Match of the Day. It's what they would have wanted, surely."

In a separate development Chelsea has a greed to provide pitch-side counselling for the children who have to walk onto the pitch holding hands with John Terry.